My time is your time

November 19, 2015

It’s all well and good that the pace of games is picking up. According to Billy Witz in the Nov. 11 New York Times

The pace of play rules that were instituted last season had an impact, shortening the average length of a game to 2 hours 56 minutes from 3:02, though [Major League Baseball’s chief baseball officer Joe] Torre said the games slowed down near the end of the season [my emphasis].

I wonder how often the replay is used for the hell of it (think frivolous lawsuits) as a strategic tool to make the opposing pitcher stand out there longer?

Another question: how much quicker would they be without the replay review? This article from Business Insider was written in 2014, but many of the questions still apply.

Just FYI, according to this 2014 article in The Wall Street Journal, the actual time of play in a sport that has no time limitations was “17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game.” By comparison, football, a game with time limits — four 15-minute quarters in regulation — contains 11 minutes of action, or at least it did when this WSJ piece ran in 2010.

Free 501 checklist available (Excel/spreadhseet format). Makes it fun to check off which books you've read and handy to bring to the bookstore or library to get what you still want to read. Send your request via email to ronkaplansbaseballbookshelf (@)gmail(dot)com.

The envelope, please…

Ron by Roth

In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.

I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.

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Most recent books read:

My Cubs: A Love Story, by Scott Simon
Grade: B+. I always get a kick when someone outside of the game who is serious fan, and not just someone looking to glom on to the extra celebrity status of running with a winner, publishes a heartfelt book like this.